Equestrian completes weekend sweep

A day after beating the No. 3 team in the nation in a tiebreaker, the South Dakota State equestrian team beat No. 9 New Mexico State 10-5 on Sunday at the DeHaan Equestrian Center in Brookings.

"This was a great end to our fall season, we truly joined forces and worked as a team," head coach Megan Rossiter said. "Each member served a valuable purpose and played a crucial role in our two successes this weekend."

The Jackrabbits, who started the season with three straight losses, won their last four shows of the fall to enter the break with a 4-3 mark.

Santana Wright won both of her hunt seat events on Saturday and continued to ride well on Sunday, boosting her record to 2-5 fences this season and capturing MOP honors in the process, scoring an 84 on Snowy. Jordan Goodall posted her first win over fences on the season, carding a 77 on Elliot.

Lauren Kerr won again on the flat to improve her record to an impressive 6-1 on the season. Megan Shiffman and Megan Violand also won points for the Jacks on the flat.

Leading 5-3 after the hunt seat events, the Jackrabbits picked up a pair of points in horsemanship from Shelby Webb and Danielle Baker. Webb improves to 3-1 after the win and Baker gets over the .500 mark with a 4-3 record in horsemanship.

Freshman Raivenne Scott evened her season record at 3-3 with a reining win, and picked up her first-ever MOP honor with a score of 73 on Ruby.

The Jacks also got reining wins from Jessie Miller, who ends the fall season with a 4-2 record, and Laura Dunlavy, won posted a mark of 6-1 in the fall.

The Jackrabbit riders now get the rest of the calendar year and all of January off before returning to action on Saturday, Feb. 2 at home against Minnesota Crookston.